Effect of shift work on hypertension: cross sectional study

BACKGROUND: The need of efficient resource management and full-time accessibility to resources has increased with the development of industry, resulting in the increase of shift workers. Previous researches of past decades show that there are various health effects on shift workers. However, the definition and the form of shift work have varied from each research and occupational harmful factors except for shift work have not been excluded completely in previous researches. Therefore, in this research, we tried to find out the effect of shift work focusing on the hypertension. To complement previously mentioned weakness of other researches, we performed our research on participants to whom we could minimize other risk factors excluding shift work. METHODS: This research examined 1,953 petrochemical plant male workers (shift work 1,075, day worker 878) who did medical checkup from 1st Jan. 2014 to 31th Dec. 2014 in a general hospital located in Ulsan, based on their medical records and questionnaires. With the questionnaire, we found out their basic information including age, social status, occupational history, and we took their physical measurements. RESULTS: Compared to day workers, shift workers’ odds ratio of developing hypertension was 1.31 (95% CI 0.98–1.75). After adjusting confounding variables, adjusted odds ratio for entire subjects was 1.51 (95% CI 1.11–2.06). Also, for subjects who were in continuous service for over 20 years, odds ratio was 1.51 (95% CI 1.08–2.11). CONCLUSIONS: Shift workers had a higher chance of hypertension than day workers do. Particularly, the longer the workers work continuously, the risk of hypertension getting higher.